LITMIR.BIZ

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DROVE HER TO THE MORGUE. Neither one of them said much. He was being guarded about what information he told her, and she was too chilled to ask for the details. All the way there, she kept thinking, Who was Jimmy Brogan and why did he want to kill me?

      In the morgue, Sam maintained a firm grip on her arm as they walked the corridor to the cold room. He was right beside her when the attendant led them to the bank of body drawers. As the drawer was pulled out she involuntarily flinched. Sam’s arm came around her waist, a steady support against the terrible sight she was about to face.

      “It ain’t pretty,” said the attendant. “Are you ready?”

      Nina nodded.

      He pulled aside the shroud and stepped back.

      As an ER nurse, Nina had seen more than her share of grisly sights. This was by far the worst. She took one look at the man’s face—what was left of it—and quickly turned away. “I don’t know him,” she whispered.

      “Are you sure?” Sam asked.

      She nodded and suddenly felt herself swaying. At once he was supporting her, his arm guiding her away from the drawers. Away from the cold room.

      In the coroner’s office she sat nursing a cup of hot tea while Sam talked on the phone to his partner. Only vaguely did she register his conversation. His tone was as matter-of-fact as always, betraying no hint of the horror he’d just witnessed.

      “…doesn’t recognize him. Or the name either. Are you sure we don’t have an alias?” Sam was saying.

      Nina cupped the tea in both hands but didn’t sip. Her stomach was still too queasy. On the desk beside her was the file for Jimmy Brogan, open to the ID information sheet. Most of what she saw there didn’t stir any memories. Not his address nor the name of his wife. Only the name of the employer was familiar: the Good Shepherd Church. She wondered if Father Sullivan had been told, wondered how he was faring in the hospital. It would be a double shock to the elderly man. First, the bombing of his church, and then the death of the janitor. She should visit him today and make sure he was doing all right…

      “Thanks, Gillis. I’ll be back at three. Yeah, set it up, will you?” Sam hung up and turned to her. Seeing her face, he frowned in concern. “You all right?”

      “I’m fine.” She shuddered and clutched the mug more tightly.

      “You don’t look fine. I think you need some recovery time. Come on.” He offered his hand. “It’s lunchtime. There’s a café up the street.”

      “You can think about lunch?”

      “I make it a point never to skip a chance at a meal. Or would you rather I take you home?”

      “Anything,” she said, rising from the chair. “Just get me out of this place.”

      NINA PICKED LISTLESSLY at a salad while Sam wolfed

      down a hamburger.

      “I don’t know how you do it,” she said. “How you

      go straight from the morgue to a big lunch.”

      “Necessity.” He shrugged. “In this job, a guy can

      get skinny real fast.”

      “You must see so many awful things as a cop.” “You’re an ER nurse. I would think you’ve seen

      your share.”

      “Yes. But they usually come to us still alive.” He wiped his hands on a napkin and slid his empty plate aside. “True. If it’s a bomb, by the time I get to the scene, we’re lucky to find anyone alive. If we find much of them at all.”

      “How do you live with it? How do you stand a job like yours?”

      “The challenge.”

      “Really, Navarro. How do you deal with the horror?”

      “My name’s Sam, okay? And as for how I deal with it, it’s more a question of why I do it. The truth is, the challenge is a lot of it. People who make bombs are a unique breed of criminal. They’re not like the guy who holds up your neighborhood liquor store. Bombers are craftier. A few of them are truly geniuses. But they’re also cowards. Killers at a distance. It’s that combination that makes those guys especially dangerous. And it makes my job all the more satisfying when I can nail them.”

      “So you actually enjoy it.”

      “Enjoy isn’t the right word. It’s more that I can’t set the puzzle aside. I keep looking at the pieces and turning them around. Trying to understand the sort of mind that could do such a thing.” He shook his head. “Maybe that makes me just as much a monster. That I find it so satisfying to match wits with these guys.”

      “Or maybe it means you’re an outstanding cop.”

      He laughed. “Either that or I’m as screwy as the bombers are.”

      She gazed across the table at his smiling face and suddenly wondered why she’d ever considered those eyes of his so forbidding. One laugh and Sam Navarro transformed from a cop into an actual human being. And a very attractive man.

      I’m not going to let this happen, she thought with sudden determination. It would be such a mistake to rebound from Robert, straight into some crazy infatuation with a cop.

      She forced herself to look away, at anything but his face, and ended up focusing on his hands. At the long, tanned fingers. She said, “If Brogan was the bomber, then I guess I have nothing to worry about now.”

      “If he was the bomber.”

      “The evidence seems pretty strong. Why don’t you sound convinced?”

      “I can’t explain it. It’s just…a feeling. Instinct, I guess. That’s why I still want you to be careful.”

      She lifted her gaze to meet his and found his smile was gone. The cop was back.

      “You don’t think it’s over yet,” she said.

      “No. I don’t.”

      SAM DROVE NINA BACK to Ocean View Drive, helped her load up the Mercedes with a few armloads of books and clothes, and made sure she was safely on her way back to her father’s house.

      Then he returned to the station.

      At three o’clock, they held a catch-up meeting. Sam, Gillis, Tanaka from the crime lab, and a third detective on the Bomb Task Force, Francis Cooley, were in attendance. Everyone laid their puzzle pieces on the table.

      Cooley spoke first. “I’ve checked and rechecked the records on Jimmy Brogan. There’s no alias for the guy. That’s his real name. Forty-five years old, born and raised in South Portland, minor criminal record. Married ten years, no kids. He was hired by Reverend Sullivan eight years ago. Worked as a janitor and handyman around the church. Never any problems, except for a few times when he showed up late and hung over after falling off the wagon. No military service, no education beyond the eleventh grade. Wife says he was dyslexic. I just can’t see this guy putting together a bomb.”

      “Did Mrs. Brogan have any idea why Nina Cormier’s address was in his car?” Sam asked.

      “Nope. She’d never heard the name before. And she said the handwriting wasn’t her husband’s.”

      “Were they having any marital troubles?”

      “Happy as clams, from what she told me. She’s pretty devastated.”

      “So we’ve got a happily married, uneducated, dyslexic janitor as our prime suspect?”

      “Afraid so, Navarro.”

      Sam shook his head. “This gets worse every minute.” He looked at Tanaka. “Eddie, give us some answers. Please.”

      Tanaka, nervous as usual, cleared his throat. “You’re

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